


Great Big Sucking Thing

by ainsley



Category: Farscape
Genre: Farscape Potluck Ficathon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-04
Updated: 2007-10-04
Packaged: 2017-10-02 02:50:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ainsley/pseuds/ainsley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Let me see if I understand this. There was a planet here two hours ago, and now it doesn’t exist?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Great Big Sucking Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [**azuremonkey**](http://azuremonkey.livejournal.com/), who requested John and Rygel stuck in a transport pod for the [Farscape Potluck Ficathon](http://kazbaby.livejournal.com/530584.html), organized by the awesome [**kazbaby**](http://kazbaby.livejournal.com/). I hope it was worth the wait! [**simplystars**](http://simplystars.livejournal.com/) rocks almost as hard as this show—she offered to beta when she’d known me for about three minutes, did so ultra-fast, and made the story ten times better. You’re a lifesaver, Stars! Any remaining mistakes are totally mine. Concrit welcomed.

John knew better, usually, than to let himself be talked into ferrying Rygel to a nearby commerce planet. But a break from Moya had seemed like a good idea at the time.

He was beginning to think there was no such thing as a good idea in this galaxy.

“Rygel, I don’t see the planet,” John said.

“It’s right there.”

“Uh, no, it’s not. And my eyes are a lot younger than yours, Sparky. Plus you’re not even looking.”

“You’re the one flying this thing. That’s your job.”

John pointed to Rygel, then to the patch of floor beside where John stood. “Rygel. Here. Now. Show me the planet.”

Sighing as if put out by the effort, Rygel hovered over and peered out.

“You must have steered us wrong. Fix it.” He turned and went away, muttering “stupid yotz” almost (but not quite) inaudibly.

John silently congratulated himself on resisting the urge to throttle the little twerp before returning to situation assessment.

“Pilot?” he asked

“Yes, Commander?”

“Why am I not seeing the planet?”

“It seems to have vanished.”

“The planet. Vanished.”

“Yes.”

“Let me see if I understand this,” John said, gesticulating for his own benefit. “There was a planet here two hours ago, and now it doesn’t exist?”

“Correct.”

“Ha. Take that, your royal flatulence,” John muttered, with a bit of an evil grin on his face.

“Excuse me?”

“Not you, Pilot. Is there any sign that a planet was here? Any asteroids, other debris?”

“Not that I can detect. Wait. Moya is detecting some sort of anomaly.”

“What kind of anomaly? Animal, vegetable, mineral?”

“I do not know. I will tell you as soon as we have more data.”

“Okay. Thanks, Pilot.”

John walked over to Rygel, poked him, and said, “So, buddy, looks like you’re not going to be trading any snurched goods today, unless you know how to make planets reappear.”

Rygel glared at him. “What the – ”

“John.” Pilot’s transmission cut off Rygel’s protests. “Moya detects a particularly strong gravity field where the planet was.”

“You’re telling me we’ve flown into a black hole and the planet got sucked into the event horizon.” John looked torn, and suddenly still. He had an up-close view of a black hole, a dream scenario for any theoretical physicist.

On the other hand, he had an up-close view of a supermassive black hole.

“There’s nothing about that phenomenon, with these characteristics, in Moya’s library, so I do not know,” Pilot said, speaking more rapidly than normal.

“Wait,” he continued, after almost no pause, “these data make sense if a sizeable number of micro black holes are being pulled into the larger one.”

“Fuck.” John took the controls, turned the pod around rapidly, and opened the throttle. “We’ll be right back. Can you use the tractor beam thing to get us there faster?

“Do you mean the docking web?”

“Yes, that,” he replied, waving his hand. “Just hurry.”

John concentrated on flying the pod, and hoped they weren’t too close to the event horizon to escape it.

“Commander,” said Pilot, speaking even more rapidly, “I tried pulling you in with the docking web four times, but the gravity collapsed the web. Now you are too far away to be reached by it.”

“Four times? You tried four times in less than a minute?”

“What was that, John? You are talking very slowly.”

John swore floridly under his breath as he realized just how very screwed he and Rygel were. Time was passing at noticeably different rates on the two ships, though they were only a few thousand metras apart.

“GetMoyaawayfromhereNOW.We’rebeingsuckedintoofast.Go!”

“We cannot just abandon you, John. You are part of Moya’s crew, and she does not want to leave you.” Pilot’s speech returned to normal. “I adjusted the comms to correct for the time difference.”

“Rygel and I will be dead in a few hours. You can’t let Moya risk her baby for us.”

The dominar’s head popped up suddenly. “Dead? What is this about dead?” he interjected.

“There has to be something we can do to help,” Pilot said.

“Not now, Rygel. Pilot, I don’t think there is, but I’ll brainstorm. Get as far as you can, but don’t leave comms range just yet.”

Rygel, deflected as long as he would allow, repeated his question. “What do you mean, dead?”

“The planet you insisted on visiting? Was sucked into a black hole. They’re like Dysons-- nothing escapes those suckers. Everything is pulled in and eventually collapses.”

“It was just there!”

“I guess it’s the black hole to end all black holes. And this one’s sucking in a bunch of Hoovers with it. Maybe if you weren’t in such a hurry Pilot would have detected the gravity field before we left Moya,” said John, pacing as much as possible in the space. “But even flying as fast as the pod can go we’re not moving fast enough to break out.”

“There has to be some way to fix it.”

“If you’d be quiet for a minute, maybe I could think.”

“Well, _fine_.” Rygel turned away, muttering, “All I wanted was something to eat other than those frelling stale food cubes.”

John paused in his pacing. “Not being quiet yet! And _I_ didn’t want to come out here in the first place.” He resumed his walking. “I for damn certain didn’t ask to get trapped in an episode of _Stargate_.”

He stopped abruptly, mid-step.

“Pilot, are you there?”

“Yes, John. Did you have an idea?”

“Is Moya currently able to starburst?”

“She uncertain, but she’s willing to try.”

“Explain the risks—she’ll have to get pretty close to us to pull us in with the starburst wake, and that’s dangerous enough without being pregnant.”

“Moya is unwilling to abandon you and the Dominar.”

Moya appeared outside the window, a handful of metras away, at that moment. Blue energy flowed along the hull as she prepared to rescue them.

::

A little while later, safely out of gravity’s crushing grip, John and Rygel docked the transport pod back onto Moya.

“Pilot, will you please tell Moya thank you from us? And let her know that Rygel owes her a favor.”

Sputtering, Rygel said, “What? Why me?”

“You were the one that got her into this, Sparky. We all could have died because of your quest for something else to eat. Those stale food cubes are good eats, even if they taste like dren.”

“Fine, fine.” Rygel turned toward his quarters. “Yes, Pilot, let Moya know how much I appreciate it.”

Near-death experiences apparently meant Rygel stopped complaining about food. For a few days, at least. It was something.


End file.
